“It looks like he’ll definitely miss some time,” head coach Jesse Minter said of Danny Pinter when the veteran center recently suffered a right leg injury. The injury occurred during the Baltimore Ravens‘ joint practice with the Minnesota Vikings a few days ago. Now, however, it has been confirmed that Pinter isn’t going to miss an extended amount of time during the 2026 season. In fact, he’s going to miss the entire season because of the injury.

Per reports, the Ravens have placed Pinter on a season-ending injured reserve ahead of the team’s roster cuts. While Coach Minter refused to address the extent of the injury earlier, reports suggested that Pinter tore his patellar tendon, which is typically a season-ending injury.

A former fifth-round pick of the 2020 NFL draft by the Indianapolis Colts, Pinter spent his first six seasons in the NFL with the Colts. Earlier this offseason, the Ravens signed the 30-year-old center on a one-year deal. And for the first time in his career, Pinter was expected to start in his NFL career.

Now, he’ll have to wait until next year. The Ravens signed him to fill the void on the offensive line left by Tyler Linderbaum, who signed a three-year, $81 million deal with the Las Vegas Raiders in free agency. But Linderbaum’s replacement has now been sidelined with a season-ending injury, leaving Jesse Minter with the task of bolstering Lamar Jackson’s protection.

For a broader context, the Ravens’ pass protection for Lamar was a legitimate weakness during the 2025 season. Last year, the quarterback faced pressure on 37.1% of his dropbacks, per reports. It was the second-worst in the league and the highest of Lamar’s career.

That was a significant increase from 35.5% in 2024, while his previous career-low was 27.0% in 2019. The rate had also been 30.3% in 2022, 33.6% in 2021, 35.3% in 2023, and 35.4% in both 2018 and 2020.

At the same time, he enjoyed some of the best pass protection of his career in 2024, when he faced pressure at a much lower rate and was sacked on just 4.3% of his dropbacks. In 2025, however, his sack rate jumped to 9.8%.

With Linderbaum out of Baltimore and Pinter ruled out for the 2026 season, the Ravens are in dire need of strengthening their offensive line with the regular season almost here. For now, the top options to replace Pinter are Ethan Pocic and Jovaughn Gwyn. Meanwhile, the team has also signed linebacker Michael Barrett to fill the roster in the absence of Danny Pinter.

At the start of training camp, Pocic was expected to earn the starting job. However, he was in a competition with Pinter and Gwyn also being on the roster. “It’s probably still a competition, and we’ll see how it shakes out over these next couple weeks,” Coach Minter said. For now, the starting center job remains open for the Ravens.